Strength in depthLiverpool won the third qualifying round tie 5-0 on aggregate, and the second-leg home win was achieved with Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher missing through injury, and Fernando Torres and Andriy Voronin on the bench as Peter Crouch and Dirk Kuyt started. Crouch opened the scoring in the first half, and after Sami Hyypiä doubled the lead, Kuyt topped a lively performance with two late goals. And with Yossi Benayoun, Sebastian Leto and Lucas Leiva all given starting places, Benítez believes his side had a real edge.

'Competition for places'"I was very pleased with the performance, we played well and you can see the competition now for places with players working to impress right to the end," said Benítez, whose team lost to AC Milan in the final in May and are aiming for a sixth European title. "I know Peter Crouch has been out of the last two games and he has now scored eight in his last ten games in Europe. But if the team keeps winning and everyone else scores goals as well, I will be happy."

Job doneHe added: "I was able to bring in Benayoun, Leto and Lucas for this game and they all did well. I was a little bit worried in the first half because we kept giving the ball away and they caused problems on the counterattack. We needed to be awake and alert and needed the second goal to kill the game off and then we started enjoying our football. It is important to be in the group stage. These kind of games you must treat with caution and now I'm pleased to be looking forward to see the draw and see how far we can go."

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